Biocognition mediated by Electricity

According to the Cambridge English dictionary, consciousness is defined as 'the state of understanding and realising something'. Although this starts from the mind, it pervades the entire body from which we perceive different things such as pain. In films also there is the concept of consciousness such as in the 2015 thriller/sci-fi movie Self/less in which with the help of a scientist a wealthy, older man transfers his consciousness into a younger man’s body. This shows that this is not just a concept but a reality for we cannot project something which isn’t in our nature. Taking this into context Dr Micheal Levin, Professor of Biology and Biomedical Engineering Director of the Allen Discovery Center Tufts University, speaks about the influence of consciousness in the whole body, neuroscience beyond the neurons and morphogenesis at the C&R colloquium "Bioelectricity: The body's cognitive glue" held on April 18th, 2024. Dr Levin uses morphogenesis as a model system to study the body’s ‘intelligence’. He also introduces us to bioelectricity as a cognitive glue facilitates this cognitive intelligent behaviour. Furthermore, he elaborates on the use of this intelligence in cancer regenerative medicine and therapeutics.

He starts using the philosophical example of Adam at the Garden of Eden, where God had given him the responsibility to name the animals. Dr Levin interprets this as man’s ability to discover the inner nature of different living beings. Material scientists believe we originated from a single cell through evolution and with modern technology, we can modify beings according to our needs. Though Dr Levin has some framework goals which include studying diverse intelligent beings regardless of composition or origin story, and experimental work which explores scientific research together with ethical frameworks. Plato who was a Greek philosopher postulated the ‘Theory of Forms’. He believed this world isn’t real, that there’s another world which is non-physical, timeless and unchangeable. In contrast, modern scientists believe in the natural laws of this world which pervade the universe and affect all living and non-living things. The natural laws include Law of Gravity and Evolution by Natural Selection through which scientists can figure our how things behave. Therefore, our experiences aren’t due to some supernatural realm but rather from interactions with the natural laws of this world.  

Bioelectricity is a field of study which deals with electrical signals generated and transferred by cells. This is especially related to the nervous system which enables us to think, process information, make decisions and retain memories. Scientists are curious about how cells make decisions such as when to reproduce. Thus from studying how a single cell can act on its own can help us to understand how a multicellular organism such as animal can develop consciousness. 

Dr Levin opines that we were just ‘one physics’ and started life from a single oocyte, which generates into a particular living organism. This means that as scientists we have to understand how cells undergo metamorphosis to develop into a living organism. He gave an example of Lacrymaria olor, a species of ciliates living in freshwater ponds. They have no brain or nervous system but are highly competent, meaning they can absorb endogenous DNA and combine it with their internal genome at the cellular level. He went on to talk on bioelectricity, which is how information is processed in the brain. Giving an example of flatworm, he explained how morphological memory and behavioural memory come together. In this case, a flatworm can be cut into many small pieces and yet each piece grows to regenerate the whole worm. Another interesting thing which was observed was if the flatworm is in a particular condition, the resulting regeneration of a new worm will also be immediately adapted to the same condition. This means even if the head is cut off, the cells of the remaining part of the body retain the memory which will be transferred to the new head. A similar example is of the salamander which regrows it’s leg which is cut off.

Intelligence, as defined by William James is ‘the ability to reach the same goal by different means’. There are a lot of examples of such adjustments the body makes to ensure survival. An experiment Dr Levin performed was on a tadpole whose body structure was formed in a way that the eyes were located on it’s tail, instead of the head. It was done by performing microsurgery to remove the eyes on the head and grafts of eye primordia transferred to the tail resulting in ectopic eyes forming at the site of graft. It astounding because the tadpole could still see without any new round of evolutionary adaptation. The neurons change so that a tissue is formed which produces signals to the spinal cord and to the brain which adapts to getting information from the tail. Through these experiments he concluded that different organisms can solve problems at various levels of sophistication. 

There are different types of spaces such as transcriptional and physiological spaces which store memories and have preferences in making decisions which is hard for us to comprehend. Because we are concerned about specifics and three dimensional spaces, we still need to learn more about these topics.

Alan Turing, who is considered the father of theoretical computer science, was also interested in developmental biology. He wrote one of the first papers to understand how chemical states can give rise to how embryonic cells put themselves together during development. This also relates to how the mind starts working during the development. Dr Levin then goes on to explain that the genome only provides the proteins, however after that there’s some system due to which the cells behaves like how to repair parts that are missing. Another example is if an early embryo is cut into two pieces, they will develop into two different bodies. This ability to using different ways to solve a problem is known as intelligence. Other examples of regeneration include the human liver and new bone growth in the deer.

In modern times when the use of AI is becoming more common, such tool can help in analysing the neural networks in the brain. However, it remains to be seen how AI can be used to understand the subjective experiences we have. Without considering a supernatural factor, modern scientists still aim to understand consciousness with knowledge from neuroscience and psychology.

Another example is of the lumen of the kidney tubule. Normally there are many small cells but if more chromosomes are added to the cells, they grow bigger to accommodate the new genetic material. However, the animal’s size remains the same. This is due to adaptation by modifying it’s anatomical structure and changing the molecular mechanisms so that it can continue it’s normal function despite the changes. Therefore, it can be seen that adaptation has been going on right from the single celled organism to the multicellular level before the brain and neurons.

Dr Levin concluded that talk by mentioning that although consciousness is related to the brain and neurons, it can at the same time can be spread to other parts of the body. He also stated that there’s a lot of potential in understanding consciousness through science and AI. In addition, bioelectricity can be used to improve health conditions such as regenerative medicine and cancer reprogramming. Related to this, a group of researchers of the Li lab at the Francis Crick Institute in London discovered the effects of electrical network in small cell lung cancer. It was discovered that the more neuron-like the tumors were, the more aggressive they became (Peinada et al., 2025). It was concluded that in the future, treatments for neurological disorders may be used to treat cancer.   

References

Blackiston, D.J., Vien, K. and Levin, M. (2017) ‘Serotonergic stimulation induces nerve growth and promotes visual learning via posterior eye grafts in a vertebrate model of induced sensory plasticity’, npj Regenerative Medicine, 2(8), doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41536-017-0012-5

Levin, M. (2021) ‘Bioelectric signalling: Reprogrammable circuits underlying embryogenesis, regeneration, and cancer’, Cell 8(184), doi: https://www.cell.com/cell/fulltext/S0092-8674(21)00223-3#fig1

Peinado, P., Stazi, M., Ballabio, C., Margineau, M., Li, Z., Colón, C.I., Hsieh, M., Choudhuri, S.P., Stastny, V., Hamilton, S., Marois, A.L., Collingridge, J., Conrad, L., Chen, Y., Ng, S.R., Magendantz, M., Bhutkar, A., Chen, J., Sahai, E., Drapkin, B.J., Jacks, T., Heiden, M.G.V., Kopanitsa, M.V., Robinson, H.P.C., and Li, L. (2025) ‘Intrinsic electrical activity drives from small-cell lung cancer progression’, Nature, doi: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-024-08575-7